Contributors

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Iron Jawed Angels

Yesterday we watched a movie for community time called "Iron Jawed Angels". The movie was about women's suffrage and how dedicated these women were to achieve their goal. The movie is very inspiring and makes you not want to give up although I did think there were a couple of scenes that were not necessary.

In class we debriefed a little about what we thought about the movie and one of the main questions asked was "what issue would you go to jail for?" I still haven't found out what issue I would really fight for and even go to jail for but I have an idea of human rights issues, maybe I WOULD go to jail for that. I have noticed that I get really frustrated when someone is mistreated, and one way I would fight that would be with civil disobedience.

Well I have to get ahead with some of my homework and I will update you with more on the class afterwords.

2 comments:

Enjoy the lunch with Robin Rose. I am glad that she is taking such an interest in you ladies. I also want to thank you Adriana for doing the interview with Mr. Miranda.

From reading the posts it appears that all of you are having a fabulous time at Brown. I hope that you now see why all of us wanted all of you to have this experience. In two short weeks your life changed dramatically and now you see the value of leaving your "comfort zone". I do hope that you will continue to expand your horizons and become more vocal on campus this year at Richmond High School and El Cerrito High School.

Please enjoy your final 48 hours and fortunately, I will see all of you in the airport on Saturday. Your plane does not leave until 4:00 PM and my plane gets into Philadelphia at 3:00 PM. So I will have a chance to say "hello" before you board for the flight home.

Keep up the good work and remember to take a campus tour of Brown before you leave. You being a Junior this is your last summer before you start college.

Adriana⎯I’m very interested in your thoughts on the movie “Iron Jawed Angels”. You wrote that you thought a couple of the scenes were unnecessary. Of course, most movies have unnecessary scenes but I’m curious which ones hit you that way. In particular, I’m wondering if these were scenes inserted for theatrical benefit or whether they were substantive to the issues.

Going to jail for your cause sounds like a noble effort but these days you can very easily get lost in the system and the people you need to sway may soon forget about you.

For example, the videographer from San Francisco who went to jail recently for nearly a year to protect his sources after filming a riot where a policeman was injured⎯can you tell me his name? No matter what you may think of his videos, he went to jail for your right to a free press yet none of us can remember his name.

The point is that in many circumstances we can be more effective outside of jail where we still have a voice and access to a means to get our word out. Once in jail, you no longer have the right to a freedom of expression and you’re usually not allowed to write books or pen articles for newspapers. You’re usually not even allowed to give interviews from jail so how effective can you be when the system you’re protesting has silenced you?

Of course, you can always die in jail and hope somebody notices but I still stick with my earlier suggestion that you can be more effective out in the “free” world.